Page 32 of Christmas with Three Firemen

“It will make coffee. Give it a minute.”

She gives the machine one last look of measured suspicion, then turns and leans back against the counter beside it, arms still crossed.

Outside the window, the brownstones glow.

A cab rolls through the intersection at the end of the block, headlights cutting bright through the dark. Someone in the apartment building directly across has their Christmas tree positioned right in the window, lit up in multicolored lights, fully visible from here.

“It smells good in here,” Noelle says, not looking at me.

“Snickerdoodles. Last batch made it out of the oven before the power quit.”

“At nine forty-three PM.”

“The best time. No one’s around to steal them before they cool.”

She glances up at that. “Is that a problem? People stealing your cookies?”

“Rico has no boundaries and no shame. You’ll learn.”

She almost smiles. Actually, almost, this time. I can see its shape before she pulls it back.

“Why do you bake?” she asks. It comes out like it surprised her, like she didn’t mean to ask it out loud.

I think about that for a second. The real answer, not the easy one.

“My mom used to bake when she was stressed,” I tell her. “Every time something went wrong, the whole apartment smelled like sugar for a week. I think I just absorbed that. Something goes sideways, I make something.”

Noelle considers this. “That’s either very healthy or a sophisticated avoidance mechanism.”

“Probably both.” I grin. “My therapist thinks so, too.”

She snorts. Actually snorts, which she immediately seems to regret, pressing her lips together like she can take it back through sheer force of will.

I laugh again, quieter this time.

“You have a nice laugh,” she says, and then looks away fast, back toward the glowing window.

The kitchen feels smaller than it did a few minutes ago. I’m not sure when that happened.

“You have a nice snort,” I offer.

“Oh, God.”

“Very distinguished. Very—”

“Mateo.”

“Very you,” I finish.

She looks up at me.

The emergency strip along the baseboard catches the angles of her face from below, and the glow from the street comes through the window behind her, and there’s absolutely nothing complicated about the fact that Noelle Meadows is one of the most beautiful women I’ve ever seen in my life.

I’ve thought so since the moment she walked into the station with her bag over her shoulder and her walls already fully constructed, and I think so now, standing barefoot in the dark kitchen, arguing with a coffee machine and trying not to smile.

She knows I’m looking at her. She doesn’t look away.

“The coffee’s going to take a few minutes,” she says.